A Chekhov Circus

A guide to the short stories of Anton Chekhov

Tag: Aristocracy

  • No. 14 – The Party

    This story is just about perfect. The party of the title is a name-day celebration for Pyotr, a handsome, self-satisfied, possibly philandering, and definitely pompous aristocrat of less-than significant means. His wife, Olya, is pregnant and miserable, not only because of Pyotr’s bloviating and flirting, but also because she is painfully encased in a corset…

  • No. 61 – The Privy Councillor

    “The Privy Councillor” is a funny but also deadly serious story about a small-town family being upended by a visit from a relative who has risen far above his modest beginnings. The visitor is the privy councillor, a foppish, citified, quivering dandy. We never learn his name; the narrator, his 14-year-old nephew, only refers to…

  • No. 137 – Fat and Thin

    A pair of old school friends bump into each other and discover that their careers have followed quite different paths.

  • No. 39 – A Trivial Incident

    This is a modest but nevertheless memorable tale of a prince, a once wealthy landowner who has fallen on hard times. The story begins in a forest where the prince, Sergey Ivanich, is out hunting, accompanied by the unnamed narrator. They are approached by the bailiff–the manager of the land–who explains that hunting is forbidden,…